


An Adventurer's Call

by dimircharmer



Category: Critical Role
Genre: Alternate Universe: Canon Divergence, Gen, Gods, Pike is a bard, Scanlan is a cleric, class swap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 07:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8524099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimircharmer/pseuds/dimircharmer
Summary: There is a world where Scanlan Shorthalt becomes not a bard, but a cleric. This is that story.





	

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Pearwaldorf who gave me this prompt in the first place, and prompted me to dive IMMEDIATELY into the pathfinder pantheon to find an appropriate patron deity for the one the only Scanlan Shorthalt. I can't beleive that "ascended to godhood on a drunken dare, keeps going out and getting drunk and giving adventuring advice" is a real deity, we're so blessed.

Scanlan is ten, maybe eleven, when he sneaks in the backdoor of the tavern that will change his life. Its name, _Freedom’s Fortune_ , sounds like as likely a place as any to try and talk someone into a meal for the night. He’s getting a little old for the ‘poor child’ routine. In all honesty, it’s only because humans are shit at telling the ages of gnomes he’s been able to milk this as far as he has. There’s a man sitting at the bar, already deep in his cups with half a plate of food in front of him gesturing wildly to an uninterested audience that has easy mark written all over him.

So Scanlan goes up to him, all wide eyes and ‘gee mister’s and ‘won’t you tell me that one again’ and against his own will, gets sucked into the story. Dressed in simple chainmail, the man at the bar speaks with an authority that belies the number of tankards in front of him. He speaks of the freedom of the open road, of the good that a stalwart adventurer could do in the world, of the joys to be found in a good cup of ale coming after coming in off the road, and he does it all with a glitter in his eye that Scanlan envies. Scanlan snatches bites food off his plate every moment the drunk's distracted all night long.

He also, because he's a kid and he's starving, steals a tankard off the bar top when everyone else is looking the other way, distracted by a brawl between the half-orc performer and an unruly farmer.

He tries to pawn the tankard the next day, and finds it returned to his pack by nightfall, his coin purse eight copper lighter.

-

“I’m not even old enough to _buy_ an ale in a reputable tavern,” Scanlan says out loud to the tankard, turning it over in his hands, “What the shit am I supposed to do with this?”

-

It takes him nearly a week before he can find anyone knowledgeable enough about Cayden Cailean, The Lucky Drunk to tell him anything but “Isn’t that the one who tried to ascend to godhood on a dare?”

He ends up at a tavern on the other side of the city, right near the gates- the first stop for adventurers coming into the city. The tavernkeep there is an old and haggard dwarf behind the bar, his own adventuring days long behind him, who has prayed to The Lucky Drunk in a casual way for years.

“It’s not a god to pray to in a serious manner anyhow,” the dwarf tells Scanlan as he cleans a glass, “I think it’d just put him off, to be perfectly honest.”

“Well, tough,” Scanlan says, “He’s a serious pain in my ass, I’m going to be a serious pain in his. I’m going to be the most dedicated damned cleric he’s ever had.”

The dwarf raises an eyebrow, and looks down at Scanlan, which must be an unusual experience for him.

“Why don’t you work here until you’re grown enough to carry Cayden’s Rapier, eh?” he asks, “Tavern living and booze making’s as much under his domain as freedom of the road is.”

Scanlan hesitates.

“You can sleep in a cot in the basement, and two square meals a day are included.”

“Deal.”

-

He’s always known that he’d have to set out for the open road eventually. He’s seen more adventuring parties pass through the tavern than he cares to admit, and he says a little prayer for each of them as they head out the door, for honest employers, for luck, and for a cold pint on their return. No group feels quite right though, until three half elves, a pair of dragon born, a goliath and a bear walk into his bar.

“I’m quitting,” He tells the barkeep, and without even checking the face of the hooded figure they’re speaking with, he slides himself into the last seat at the table and says, “What’s the job?”

-

A few weeks into travelling with the group, their goliath goes missing (a shame, Scanlan was really starting to like him), their dragon born palaidin leaves their company, they pick up a twitchy human, and they find themselves at odd ends. They go into town looking for another job and instead they encounter another gnome.

They find her in a tavern, singing like an angel, about lost love and second chances and forgiveness, and after she finishes her set, she comes right up to their table.

“Hi,” She says, “I’m Pike Trickfoot. I’ve been looking for some folks to come with me to help me find my buddy Grog.”

And, well, how could Scanlan say no to a woman like that?

-

“Nu-uh,” Scanlan says, healing pulsing through his hands into Pike’s form, shattered on the floor in Emon’s Palace, “Her story’s not over yet, her adventure’s not over yet, you motherfucker _come on!”_

The battle with the demons, with the possessed family rages around them. Scanlan’s hands are soaked with Pike’s blood, trying desperately to hold her insides in. She’s so pale, deep red blood colouring her hair darker even than Keyleth’s as it surrounds her like a halo on the floor. His hands are tucked in a tear in her beautiful blue and gold embroidered performing shirt clutching the gaping wound in her side, and he prays like he’s never prayed before in his life.

“You like adventurers, right? We’re fuck all without people like her to tell our story, come on, _COME ON, DON’T LEAVE HER LIKE THIS!”_

Under his hands, Pike sputters, coughs blood, and comes back to life.

“Holy shit,” Scanlan says.

“Are your hands up my shirt?” Pike says.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” Scanlan says again, and faints.

-

“This is a really, really stupid idea. Still,” he says to himself, staring up at the mansion he’s supposed to infiltrate, and then down at the tankard hanging by his side, “No less than you would have done, eh?” 

-

“How do you do it?” Vax asked, “Is it a god thing?”

“Is what a god thing?”

“you’re so- happy, all the time,” Vax says, “We go through so much shit all the time. I almost died, _you_ almost died, and you’re always smiling.”

Vax looks so earnestly mystified, but there’s a thread of terrible sadness underneath, of sheer incomprehension, and Scanlan takes pity on him.

“It’s not a god thing, not really,” Scanlan says, “But a little, I guess. He was just some asshole, the same as we are. He didn’t have anything but the next job, and his friends and his drink. He gets it, I think, more than the rest of the gods. But it’s not really that at all.”

Scanlan looks up at him, earnest, “We have each other, for now, and I like you all ok. I like what we’re doing. It’s better than what came before. We’re all pretty fucked up, but we have right now. We have ale to drink, and a bed to sleep in, and a job we believe in to do. I don’t know what else there is, really. Our lives are ok right now. You have to embrace that, to leave the shit behind in someone else’s bed and move on. Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the summery, I wrote this on tumblr, it got popular enough I figured I'd crosspost it here.


End file.
